A phone call in October, a row of spruces on the property line, a neighbour holding a folding rule: questions about boundary distances reach landscaping firms in Lower Saxony all year round, and they rarely arrive as a finished job. They arrive as uncertainty. Explaining the height scale of the Lower Saxony Neighbour Law Act properly on your own website answers the region's most common boundary question in one place - and brings enquiries for cutting back, transplanting and replanting that already know what they are about.
Key takeaways
- Section 50 NNachbG grades the boundary distance by the height of the plant: 0.25 m up to 1.2 m tall, 0.50 m up to 2 m, 0.75 m up to 3 m, 1.25 m up to 5 m, 3.00 m up to 15 m and 8.00 m above that (NI-VORIS).
- Under section 51 NNachbG the distance is measured at ground level from the centre of the tree or shrub to the boundary - not from the crown drip line and not from the planting pit (NI-VORIS).
- Below 0.25 m of boundary distance the neighbour may demand removal under section 53 (1) NNachbG, or leave the owner the choice of keeping the plant at a height of up to 1.2 m (NI-VORIS).
- Removal and cutting back are owed under section 53 (3) NNachbG only between 1 October and 15 March - which is also the window your scheduling should work with (NI-VORIS).
- The claim lapses under section 54 NNachbG if the neighbour does not bring an action by the fifth following calendar year; afterwards annual trimming at the present height remains available (NI-VORIS).
- In the outlying area a boundary distance of 1.25 m is sufficient for all plantings over 3 m tall under section 52 (2) NNachbG - an exception that can carry location pages for rural regions (NI-VORIS).
Why the boundary question lands with the firm
The question of the correct boundary distance is one of the few garden questions people ask under pressure rather than out of interest. Usually there is a conflict behind it, sometimes a purchase contract, occasionally a building application. Whoever asks is looking first for a number and then for someone to do the work. A website can supply both, provided the number is right and the route to the enquiry is short.
In practice three occasions converge. The first is new planting: someone is putting in a hedge or a garden tree and wants to know how far from the boundary to stay. The second is the existing stock: a row planted years ago has grown beyond the permitted height and the neighbour has been in touch. The third is a change of owner: a buyer takes over a garden together with planting whose history is unknown. All three lead to the same piece of information and to three very different jobs.
In all three cases the firm is the first port of call, not a law office. That is both an opportunity and a limit. Reproducing the rules of neighbour law is permissible and useful; assessing a specific dispute is legal advice and does not belong on a company page. The text on the website therefore describes what the statute says and points further for the individual case - in Lower Saxony the first stop in many places is the municipality's voluntary conciliation board.
For the website that means a dedicated guide page, not a line in a service description. It carries the table, it carries the measuring rule, it carries the time window - and from there it links into the services that follow from the answer. How such a page is tied into the location pages for your region decides whether it creates visibility or merely files away knowledge.
Explaining is not advising
The height scale of section 50 NNachbG
The Lower Saxony Neighbour Law Act dates from 31 March 1967 and was last amended by Article 1 of the Act of 23 July 2014 (NI-VORIS). The boundary distances for plants sit in the eleventh section, in sections 50 to 57. The core is section 50 (1): it assigns a minimum distance to each height class, in six steps from 0.25 metres to 8.00 metres.
Mit Bäumen und Sträuchern sind je nach ihrer Höhe mindestens folgende Abstände von den Nachbargrundstücken einzuhalten: a) bis zu 1,2 m Höhe 0,25 m b) bis zu 2 m Höhe 0,50 m c) bis zu 3 m Höhe 0,75 m d) bis zu 5 m Höhe 1,25 m e) bis zu 15 m Höhe 3,00 m f) über 15 m Höhe 8,00 m.
What counts is the height of the plant, not its species. That sounds banal, but it is the most common error of reasoning in a first conversation: the question is about the species, while the answer has to be about the height at which this stock will be kept. Keeping a row permanently at 1.80 metres stays in the class up to 2 metres and needs 0.50 metres of distance. Letting the same plant grow through lands it in the class up to 5 metres and owes 1.25 metres. That difference of 0.75 metres decides whether a stand may stay or has to go.
Section 50 (2) expressly draws in two further cases: the distances also apply to living hedges, provided the hedge is not planted on the boundary itself, and they apply to plants that have grown without human involvement (NI-VORIS). The second half of that sentence weighs more heavily in existing gardens than it looks: a self-sown seedling that nobody planted is subject to the same scale as a deliberately planted row. For the special case of section 31 there is an additional requirement that a strip of 0.6 metres must remain clear in front of the plants (NI-VORIS).
| Height of the plant | Minimum distance to the boundary | What that means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| up to 1.2 m | 0.25 m | Low clipped hedge, bed edging, trimmed ground cover |
| up to 2 m | 0.50 m | Screening hedge at chest height, annual formal cut |
| up to 3 m | 0.75 m | Tall hedge, columnar forms, row cut over several years |
| up to 5 m | 1.25 m | Small-crowned garden tree, fruit tree on weak rootstock |
| up to 15 m | 3.00 m | Mature broadleaf tree in a domestic garden |
| over 15 m | 8.00 m | Large tree, specimen in a park, old oak or beech |
This table is the reason a page like this gets found and bookmarked. It answers the search query in the first screen height - and at the same time it makes clear that the answer depends on a figure the person asking has to supply. That very figure is what the enquiry form needs later on: no target height, no distance answer; no distance answer, no quotable price.
Measuring, exceptions and the outlying area
Before the scale applies at all, it must be clear where the measurement is taken. Section 51 NNachbG settles this in a single sentence: the distance is measured at ground level from the centre of the tree or shrub to the boundary (NI-VORIS). Not from the crown drip line, not from the outermost tip of a branch, not from the edge of the planting pit. In practice this one line decides more disputes than the table itself, because both sides measure differently and both can quote figures that are correct on their own terms.
The measuring point
At ground level, from the centre of the tree or shrub to the boundary. With multi-stemmed plants this typically leads to discussion, because the centre has to be established first.
Behind a wall or screen
Under section 52 (1), section 50 does not apply to plantings behind a wall or an opaque enclosure as long as they do not grow above it (NI-VORIS).
Roads and watercourses
Also exempt are plantings on the boundaries with public roads and watercourses, as well as plantings on public roads and on bank slopes (NI-VORIS).
In the outlying area
In the outlying area under section 35 (1) of the Federal Building Code, a boundary distance of 1.25 m is sufficient for all plantings over 3 m tall (NI-VORIS).
The fourth exception is the most interesting one commercially. Anyone serving rural clients - farmsteads, equestrian facilities, traditional orchards - works in the outlying area more often than in the planned built-up area. There, a uniform distance of 1.25 metres applies to all plantings over three metres tall instead of the scale running up to 8.00 metres. That decides the feasibility of a tree row or a shelter planting and belongs on the location pages for rural regions, not in a footnote. Where existing stock turns into a safety question, tree inspection follows on directly.
The municipality may be stricter
Missing distance: removal, cutting back, time bar
Section 53 NNachbG governs what the neighbour may demand, and the first stage is sharper than most expect: trees, shrubs or hedges with less than 0.25 metres of boundary distance must be removed at the neighbour's request; the neighbour may, however, leave the owner the choice of instead keeping the planting at a height of up to 1.2 metres by cutting it back (NI-VORIS). The second stage covers everything that has grown beyond the permitted height: such plants must be cut back to the permitted height on request if the owner does not wish to remove them (NI-VORIS). If the tree stands exactly on the boundary, federal law applies instead of state law: under section 923 of the German Civil Code the fruit and, if the tree is felled, the tree itself belong to the neighbours in equal shares; under subsection 2 either neighbour may demand its removal, and that claim is excluded where the tree serves as a boundary marker and, in the circumstances, cannot be replaced by another suitable boundary marker (Federal Ministry of Justice).
- Less than 0.25 m of boundary distance: removal on request, alternatively cutting back and keeping the plant at a height of up to 1.2 m (section 53 (1) NNachbG).
- Above the permitted height: cutting back to the permitted height if the owner does not wish to remove the plant (section 53 (2) NNachbG).
- Performance period: 1 October to 15 March; outside that window there is no obligation to carry the work out (section 53 (3) NNachbG).
- Removal claim barred: no action brought by the fifth calendar year following the planting (section 54 (1) NNachbG).
- Cutting-back claim barred: no action brought by the fifth calendar year after the permitted height was exceeded (section 54 (2) NNachbG).
- After the bar takes effect: annual trimming at the present height can still be demanded (section 54 (2) NNachbG).
- Replacement plantings keep the distances of sections 50 and 52 (2); in closed plantings individual specimens may be replanted (section 56 NNachbG).
- A subsequent change of the boundary does not affect the lawfulness of distance and height (section 57 NNachbG).
The time bar is where the conversations turn. It runs for five calendar years and starts not with the dispute but with the planting, or with the moment the permitted height was exceeded. What matters is the second sentence of section 54 (2): once the exclusion period has expired, the neighbour may still require the owner to keep the planting at its present height by trimming it annually (NI-VORIS). A lost claim thus becomes a standing maintenance job - for the firm a contract topic rather than a single appointment, and a direct link to maintenance contracts. Notification of an application for conciliation proceedings before the conciliation board or another settlement body counts as equivalent to bringing an action (NI-VORIS).
{
"reason": "cutting back",
"current_height_m": 4.2,
"target_height_m": 2.0,
"boundary_distance_m": 0.8,
"running_metres": 18,
"species": "Thuja occidentalis",
"location": "built-up area",
"access": "lawn, 1.10 m clearance",
"disposal": "by the firm",
"window": "1 October to 15 March"
}Ten fields, of which three decide everything: today's height, the desired target height and the measured distance to the boundary. With those three figures a quote can be calculated without driving out first. Without them, you drive out and calculate afterwards. The difference is one journey per enquiry, and in season that adds up faster than a guide page costs in effort. How to build a quote that is accepted after this groundwork is set out in a quote that gets accepted.
Two calendars: neighbour law and nature conservation
Two deadlines sit over every cutting-back job, and they come from different statutes. The first is in neighbour law: the owner only has to fulfil the obligation to remove or cut back plants between 1 October and 15 March (NI-VORIS). That is not a prohibition for the rest of the year but a limit on the duty: anyone demanding a cut in June cannot enforce it.
The second deadline is in the Federal Nature Conservation Act. Under section 39 (5) sentence 1 no. 2 BNatSchG it is prohibited to cut, coppice or remove trees that stand outside woodland, short-rotation plantations or horticulturally used land, and hedges, living fences, shrubberies and other woody plants, between 1 March and 30 September; gentle shaping and maintenance cuts to remove the season's growth or to keep trees healthy remain permitted (Federal Ministry of Justice). The inserted qualifier belongs in the scheduling: it says which trees are meant, and trees on horticulturally used land - the normal case in a private garden - are not covered by this provision. For hedges, living fences, shrubberies and other woody plants the period does apply in the garden as well; provisions outside this one remain unaffected. Read together, the two deadlines produce a practical window for those woody plants that opens in October and closes at the end of February.
| Period | What is possible | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| 1 October to end of February | Removal and hard cutting back of hedges and woody plants, with the nature conservation period not standing in the way | Section 53 (3) NNachbG, section 39 (5) BNatSchG |
| 1 to 15 March | The neighbour law performance period is still running while the nature conservation period has already begun for hedges and woody plants | Section 53 (3) NNachbG, section 39 (5) BNatSchG |
| 16 March to 30 September | Gentle shaping and maintenance cuts on hedges and woody plants; there is no duty to fulfil the neighbour's claim | Section 39 (5) BNatSchG, section 53 (3) NNachbG |
The overlap is narrow, but it is there: from 1 to 15 March the neighbour law performance period is still running while the nature conservation period has already started. In practice that means scheduling for removals ends at the end of February and not in mid-March. Saying so on the guide page moves enquiries from spring into October and fills the weeks when maintenance rounds thin out. On new-build plots the right moment is earlier still, namely during planning - how early that appointment falls is shown in new-build outdoor areas.
One sentence that moves appointments
The guide page: structure, table, enquiry route
A guide page on boundary distances is not a news item that slips down the list after two weeks. It is a permanent entry point that brings enquiries again every late summer and every spring. To do that it needs a fixed order: answer first, reasoning second, next step at the end.
Table at the top
Six rows, two columns, no long introduction in front of it. Someone searching for the distance for a three-metre hedge has to see the 0.75 metres before scrolling.
Highlight the measuring rule
At ground level, from the centre of the plant to the boundary. One sentence, set apart visually, because it prevents the most common mismeasurement.
Separate the exceptions visibly
Wall, opaque enclosure, road, watercourse, outlying area. Four or five tiles are enough; firms working in rural areas highlight the 1.25 metres.
Name the time window
1 October to 15 March under neighbour law, with the nature conservation period starting on 1 March for hedges and woody plants. Two dates, one consequence for the appointment.
Set the next step
A form asking for current height, target height and measured distance, plus the matching service page. Without this step the page stays knowledge without effect.
Six rows, two columns, no long introduction in front of it. Someone searching for the distance for a three-metre hedge has to see the 0.75 metres before scrolling.
At ground level, from the centre of the plant to the boundary. One sentence, set apart visually, because it prevents the most common mismeasurement.
Wall, opaque enclosure, road, watercourse, outlying area. Four or five tiles are enough; firms working in rural areas highlight the 1.25 metres.
1 October to 15 March under neighbour law, with the nature conservation period starting on 1 March for hedges and woody plants. Two dates, one consequence for the appointment.
A form asking for current height, target height and measured distance, plus the matching service page. Without this step the page stays knowledge without effect.
The page depends on being regionally anchored. Boundary distances for plants are state law; the NNachbG scale applies in Lower Saxony and cannot be transferred to other federal states. That is precisely why a Lower Saxony guide page carries the state in its title and points to the regions where the firm actually works. A portfolio gallery with completed cutbacks from the same region turns information into evidence of capability, and the service overview sorts the work that follows from that information.
From the answer to the enquiry
The step from information to enquiry is where most guide pages stop. They explain well and end with a general contact button. In doing so they give away the advantage they have just built: the visitor has three figures in mind that no form asks for.
- Current height in metres, estimated or measured - the field accepts both.
- Target height in metres, with the distance table as an aid right next to it.
- Distance from the centre of the stem to the boundary in metres, following the measuring rule of section 51 NNachbG.
- Running metres for hedges, number of specimens for individual trees - either figure will do.
- Location: built-up area or outlying area, because the 1.25 metre exception depends on it.
- Preferred period, preset to the winter half-year.
- Disposal of the arisings, because it often moves the price more than the cut itself.
The number of fields matters less than their order. What the visitor knows without thinking comes first; what requires getting up and measuring comes last. A form that opens with the question about the measured boundary distance loses exactly the share of enquiries that landed on the page for that reason.
Two follow-ons belong on every guide page of this kind. The first is the service page describing the work - for trees that is the tree care page, for hedges the combination of cutting and screening, because planting that stands too close is frequently replaced by a fence. The ministry brochure gives the height limit for that: an enclosure on the boundary may be 2.00 m high, and in commercial and industrial areas there is no height limit (Lower Saxony Ministry of Justice). The second follow-on is the location page: someone searching in Hildesheim does not want to read the state rule but to find the firm that applies it in Hildesheim.
That leaves the case where the information turns into a dispute and the job changes during execution. Then the scope shifts, and the price with it. Documenting such changes before the saw starts keeps variations under control; the procedure is set out in handling variations properly. The order matters: approval first, then the cut - particularly when a neighbour on the other side of the boundary is reading along.
Boundary distance is therefore more than a legal footnote. It is a recurring occasion, an appointment that falls in the quiet season, and a figure that hardly anyone knows by heart. Three properties that can carry a page - provided it supplies the figure, names the date and keeps the route to the enquiry short. Running the recurring duties around paved surfaces as a page of their own alongside it, such as weed control, covers the property completely from the boundary to the driveway.
Related Articles
Tree protection and felling seasons in Germany
From 1 March to 30 September German law restricts hedge and tree work. What stays allowed, which exemptions apply and what your business must explain.
New-build outdoor areas: enquiries before the move-in
An average of 27 months passes between the building permit and completion: how a service page for new-build outdoor areas wins enquiries before the handover.
Section 35a tax relief: what belongs on the invoice
Private clients deduct 20 per cent of labour costs from their income tax, up to 1,200 euros a year. Whether that works is decided by your invoice: labour.